Lancashire & Cheshire Counties 2
For their first home league game of the season, Eccles 1XV hosted Heaton Moor on Saturday. The teams last met in 2013 and although Eccles had little recent knowledge of the playing standard of the Stockport club, last weekend’s results suggested the match would be a close contest. This turned out to be the case with a high number of unforced errors leaving Eccles regretting their failure to make the most of their opportunities.
A respectful minute of silence was observed by the teams and spectators in tribute to Her Majesty The Queen. The game kicked off and Eccles failed to secure the ball, giving away 3 penalties in the opening minutes, handing possession and attacking opportunity to Moor who soon had a 10m line out. The ball was won by the visitors, Eccles overcommitted to defending the maul resulting in a 2v1 on the blindside for the Moor scrum half to dart to the left corner and score with just 6 minutes played. The conversion missed. (0-5)
The scoreboard did not change for the rest of the half. The Moor left winger made the most of his speed with an attack down the same flank but was stopped short of the line by an excellent tackle from Gavin Ackers Johnson and the Eccles defence were able to clear their lines. For the next 30 minutes the game was played around the half way line, with Eccles enjoying the majority of possession but unable to penetrate the Moor territory with sloppy forward passing, poor handling and knocks-ons preventing progression into scoring positions. Both sides were guilty of these frustrating infringements which disrupted the flow of play and the game became midfield stalemate . Moor were given an opportunity to extend their lead with a penalty in the middle of the pitch, about 30m out, but this was missed.
With the clock ticking down to the interval, Eccles pressed their first real attack of the first half into the visitor’s 22. A promising kick to the corner saw Tim Balogun secure possession but, lacking support, he was stopped a few metres short of the line and Moor were able to turn over possession. Their high kick, aimed at relieving the pressure, was pouched on the halfway line by Cammy Oates who took play directly back towards the visitor's goal line and passed inside to TB, appearing to be in two places at once. Using terrific footwork to evade the midfield tackles the winger drives to within 10m of the posts, but succeeds in offloading ball in the tackle the quickly supporting Rayden Brice who powers through to score next to the sticks for a straightforward conversion to give Eccles the half-time lead as the whistle is blown.
HT 7-5.
Following the re-start, Eccles once again knocked-on allowing the visitors a scrum, from which they were eventually awarded a penalty in front of the posts, which they slotted home to retake the lead with just 2 minutes of the half played. (7-8).
Despite the determined attacking efforts of Eccles, who dominated possession and territory for the remainder of the game, Heaton Moor succeeded in holding onto to their lead through a combination of solid, effective defending inside their 22 and more self-inflicted errors from the hosts. Eccles, wanted to speed things up but were unable to catch at pace regularly giving the advantage to Moor who wanted to slow things down.
At 50 minutes, during an attack in the Moor 22, Eccles once again spilt the ball and the visitors were able to kick and chase up the field, all the way to the Eccles 22. With no fullback or defensive cover in place, Fly Half James Wright made an heroic effort to catch and tackle the breakaway but the Moor winger was up in support and able to take the pass and score the try out wide, somewhat against the run of play. (7-13).
Eccles continued to attack, but were making hard work of it and were unable to break through the Moor lines. In the last 10 minutes the visitors were given opportunity to move play into the opposition half where Eccles demonstrated some solid defence work of their own. Rayden Brice was awarded a yellow and sent to the bin for a ruck infringement, but the Eccles goal line remained unthreatened thereafter. With a few minutes on the clock, Eccles were awarded a scrum in a good central position inside the Heaton Moor half, with the potential to win the match with a late score, but the move broke down once again through poor handling.
A game that was there for the wining ended with a 7-13 victory to Moor who defended well but might consider themselves fortunate to have faced an Eccles team who squandered their attacking opportunities.
FT 7-13.
